Description

This route is located about 2 minutes from the parking lot and is next to Easy Jam. Follow a trail around to the left of the Nautilus until a dihedral is found (Easy Jam) with a beautiful finger crack curving up and to the right. Climb the finger crack and belay at a shelf 30-40 feet up. A walkoff can be found by going to the right, squeezing through a small hole, and descending a easy chimney.

Protection

This is a short pitch, and it eats up as much gear as you can stuff in it. It could easily be lead on a set of nuts, but aliens or small cams are also very useful.

Per L Kap: there is a solid 2-bolt anchor at the top now and another ten feet to the left for Easy Jam.

Another walkoff is to go far right (past the Three Sisters area) to an obvious walk-off. Don't go left or straight ahead to a small hole w/chimney. That's Candlestick (5.7) which I doubt you'd want to downclimb.

We decended via the bolts at the top of etude to the left/right hand on the opposite side of the Nautilus. From the plateau at the top of the climb its an easy walk there. This is also an easy way to toprope either of these climbs. There are no bolts left on these climbs and being slab climbs therefore unprotectable.

Were the bolts added on Sunday (7/14)? I had a group of scouts up there most of Saturday, and didn't see them...

Also - does the crack on the slab just to the right of Cornelius (left-arching line which joins Cornelius about 10 feet below the top) have a name? Short, but a fun little sequence of perfect hand jams.

First, whoever put bolts on this really needs an attitude adjustment. With a #6 friend. WTF. There is not a single reason for those to be there. The anchor is piss-easy to set, the walk off is of similar difficulty to the approach, and this hasn't needed bolts at any point in the 30+ years since it was originally climbed.

Second, the right variant doesn't have a name, so far as I'm aware of, but it goes at about 5.8 if you start from the ground and do the face below to get to the crack, rather than traversing in from the start of Cornelius.

I completely agree about the attitude adjustment, and hope that someone will cleanly remove the bolts in the near future. As you say, it is ridiculously easy to build an anchor on top - with almost whatever rack you happen to be carrying (I think I used a couple stoppers and a mid-sized hex, but there are many, many, many choices.)

To whatever kind soul removes the bolts: please pull, rather than chop! That will keep the slap looking nice, and avoids leaving sharp nasties sticking out for novice climbers.

Per the right crack - I traversed in from the left, and that's harder than Cornelius, but much easier than 5.8. The crack itself is easy - 5.6 if Cornelius is 5.5. I didn't try the wall immediately below the right crack, but the face to the left (below Cornelius) seemed quite a bit harder than 5.8.

You can get details about those bolts, it led me to change my opinion regarding the face climb. Still not a fan of the anchor bolts, but I understand why they are there and would prefer either a clean, correct removal or to leave them in place and fully usable. On the other hand, please climb Slick and Superficial, Pretty Girls With Long Knives, Squat, Arch Stanton, and about a dozen other rap-bolted cracks in the main area at Vedauwoo before spouting about "ground up". While you could claim that the first wave of Vedauwoo development was ground up, all the other waves of development since the 1950s have been any way that got it done. Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of these bolts, but anybody who tells you that Vedauwoo is some bastion of ground-up trad-to-the-core values is trying to sell you something. Anyway, the major side-effect of the I-hate-bolts crowd has been the maddening removal of necessary anchor hardware from good, useful anchors, or the eye-sore hanger-theft that was the first "chopping" of that route. Either contact Scarpelli (who placed them, see the Vedauwoo main page for details) and arrange for the correct removal of those bolts, or shut the hell up. All the complaints have done is led to ignorant would-be Samaritans making the situation worse, and giving the Forest Service a reason to regulate climbing for us.

Due to an enormous amount of traffic on this route, the rock has become quite polished, making the climb somewhat more difficult than "5.5." Was on it today, and it sure felt more like 5.7 than "a mere 5.5."

Rodger, I think the big time heat also had a lot to do with the grease factor. Rubber was giving way some, but no doubt the 1000s and 1000s of ascents it's seen also plays a part in the "Oh shit! I might actually come off of a fucking 5.5! What the fuck?"

LMAO!

Had a BLAST!

After you left (Rodger), we did it again on a TR, and instead of traveling below the crack, we simply walked up on it. Dropped that section down to about 5.0 doing it that way.

I personally wouldn't want to lead it that way, placing somewhat blindly below my feet.

Climbed this with young children this weekend and totally appreciated the simplicity of having anchors at the top. IMHO, the anchors were not an eyesore - I couldn't even see them until near the end of the pitch. Fun climb and fun to find that small children can handjam fingerlocks!

If you are someone who is not terribly practiced standing on semi-polished slab, placing gear, and/or finger-locking in cracks, the middle of this climb this will feel much harder than 5.5. Me, I'm currently all three. Was mildly terrified.